It's warming up
Saturday December 26, 2009 - Email this article to a friend

That’s if you can call -2 warm. The severe cold weather is on its way out in the Alps as a warm front comes in from the South West. Check out a PlanetSKI video snow report from France

What a strange old time it has been out here in the Alps. Last weekend it was -20c in many places, while in resorts like Zermatt it was below -30c with the wind chill taken into account.

"It was seriously cold up on the glacier in Pitztal," says one of PlanetSKI's reporters. "Now though things are warming up and set to get even milder."

The coldest temperature recorded in Austria was -24.4c in Sankt Jakob in Defereggen, East Tyrol. It had not been so cold in Carinthia since the 1960s and in Styria since 1981.

Things though have changed and our reporter in St Martin de Belleville in The Trois Vallees, Ben Clatworthy, says it has been a pretty mixed picture.

See his video report on the snow conditions here.

For many resorts the freezing level has risen to around 2000m and rain is falling in some places at resort level over the next few days. In Verbier is was -2 on Wednesday morning, 2 days earlier at the same time of day it was ten degrees colder at -12c.

Cove covers up"I have never know it to be so cold here in Verbier and I have been coming for a decade or so. It felt more like Canada where I have skied in seriously cold weather," says the PlanetSKI content editor, James Cove.